Bill Irwin joins old circus pals for 'Scapin'

THEATER

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, September 16, 2010

Bill Irwin in character for "Scapin," adapted and directed by Irwin for ACT

Bill Irwin in character for "Scapin," adapted and directed by Irwin for ACT

Photo: Scott Clark

Bill Irwin joins old circus pals for 'Scapin'

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"Any time you're onstage with Geoff Hoyle," Bill Irwin begins, before his mind seems to trail off in several directions at once.

"We go back such a long way. We're doing this one difficult scene in rehearsal, Molière or somebody he stole it from, I'm not sure, but it's an iconic scene in French comedy - my eyebrow and Geoff's are about this close (his palm is an inch from his brow) and we walk as we talk. We don't choreograph that. We just know, oh, he's gonna walk. I'll walk. It goes back to the '70s when we were in those baking circus rings together and we all had hair. It's a very visceral team effort, that kind of circus work. You're wiping each other's sweat off as well as your own. So I just walk across a rehearsal room with Hoyle; it's a reunion."

And not just for the two physical comedy masters who, working with Pickle Family Circus co-founder Larry Pisoni, made the late '70s a golden age of circus clowning in the Bay Area. When "Scapin" begins previews today at American Conservatory Theater, it will mark an unusual reunion of early Pickle talent.

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Sitting in an ACT studio after a full day of rehearsal, Irwin ticks off the names excitedly. Besides Hoyle, "Scapin" composer Randy Craig, who also performs in the show, "was the original keyboard player for the Pickles." Movement consultant Kimi Okada, best known for her work with ODC/San Francisco, not only performed with the Pickles but also was married to Irwin at the time. Drummer and performer Keith Terry "was the second guy who sat at the drums in the Pickle Circus Band. Now he's a world-famous percussionist and body musician."

It's also a reunion for Irwin with Molière's penultimate comedy. He and Mark O'Donnell (co-author of the musical "Hairspray") first adapted "Scapin" for Seattle Repertory, where Irwin directed it and performed the title role in 1995. He revived the show two years later for New York's Roundabout Theatre, off-Broadway, but says he still "felt I had unfinished clown business with it."

Since then, Irwin has won even wider acclaim - for "Fool Moon," which he brought to ACT twice, and his (second) Tony Award-winning role in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (reprised at the Golden Gate Theatre in '07) - but retained his desire to get back to "Scapin."

"I kept mentioning it to (ACT Artistic Director) Carey (Perloff). She would say, 'What shows do you want to do?' And I would say, 'Here's one I want to do while I still can, physically.' And she'd say, 'No, we did another version of that. It's too soon.' And I'd say, 'Well, just take a look at the script.' A year later, same conversation. Then, typical Carey, she calls me and says, 'I just read it. We've got to do it.' "

Perhaps not a moment too soon. Irwin turned 60 in April ("I'm trying to look at it as an exciting adventure"), which he says adds new dimensions to the title role. But with his son Santos in college and money tight, he has finally taken his agent's advice to do less theater and more TV and film for a while. Besides his notable role in "Rachel Getting Married," he has "been doing these occasional appearances on 'CSI' - a serial killer. On TV I only play heavies, psycho-heavies." And he's excited about a new series, "Lights Out," beginning in January on FX.

That's partly why he's enthusiastic about getting a new shot at "Scapin" with his old Pickle colleagues and a cast that reunites ACT core company actors René Augesen and Gregory Wallace with their former colleagues Steven Anthony Jones and Jud Williford, as well as recent conservatory graduate Omozé Idehenre. The adaptation strips away a lot of the text to focus on the clown comedy with its ancient "wily servant" plot and its metatheatrical vaudevillian aspects.

"It's pretty different" from the original, Irwin agrees, "but O'Donnell and I maintain that we've hewed to Molière's impulses and intent of 1671. That's something you'd have to say even if it wasn't true, but I really believe it - especially with the notion of a guy playing the title role who wrote it and is directing. It makes things complicated, but that's how theater was done before whatever point the modern director came in.

"Basically, we're approaching this with that feeling of how do we get a show on? Which was Molière's impulse. My two-bit theory is that he and his company were in a predicament where they had to get a show up and everybody's telling him, 'Just keep your head down. No more "Tartuffes" right now. Don't make any more trouble.' So he turned to this old commedia exercise, this intricate plot, but he's making fun of it at the same time, celebrating and skewering this thing he loves."

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